System Design
Historically, most virtual crew training has been accomplished with appended trainers or with crew station trainers. An appended trainer consists of equipment added to an actual (parked) combat vehicle such that the vehicle is used to train a full or partial crew in a virtual environment. Examples are Raydon's Abrams Appended Trainer (A-FIST XXI) and the Bradley Appended Trainer (AB-FIST). A crew station trainer includes a replica of a crew compartment of an actual vehicle. Examples are Raydon's M-COFT XXI and SIMNET XXI trainers for the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle. The appended and crew station trainers typically provide higher fidelity and very little modularity. Here, “fidelity” refers to the physical and functional realism of the man-machine interface, specifically, the realism of the vehicle and/or weapon controls in terms of numbers of controls and control realism; the realism of visual imagery in terms of field of view, resolution, and scene content; and the realism of the physical crew position in terms of the human support structure. Further, these trainers tend to be purpose-built for either individual/crew training or for collective training, but not both.
More recently, desktop training systems have emerged that are capable of training individuals and crews of military combat vehicles with less fidelity but at a much lower cost than the appended and crew station trainers. However, these desktop systems are not modular and, like the higher fidelity appended and crew station trainers, tend to be purpose-built for either individual/crew training or for collective training, but not both.
Hence, there is a need for a virtual crew training system that is sufficiently flexible to allow both individual/crew training and collective training, is modular, and can provide any level of fidelity.
Gunner Module
Current simulators for mounted weapons training use video projection screens and a fixed mount weapon mockup. Taken together, this results in a limited field of view for the gunner, i.e., the gunner can only look and shoot at scenes depicted on the projection screen. Typically, these screens are limited to the forward direction only.
This approach also requires more space to implement, making it impractical to use in standard trailers or portable shelters. One instantiation of this approach was implemented by the U.S. government at the Mounted Warfare Testbed in Fort Knox, Ky. Another instantiation of this approach was implemented by Lockheed Martin for the government's Virtual Combat Convoy Trainer program, as documented in the Aug. 31, 2004 Orlando Sentinel. Hence, there is a need for a mounted-weapon training simulator module that has a relatively small physical footprint, yet provides realistic perspective, i.e., in all possible directions, for a trainee's view and aim.